Compared to the post-secondary level, distance education at the elementary and secondary levels has received little attention from researchers (Kapitzke & Pendergast, 2005; Smith, Clark, & Blomeyer, 2005). This lack of attention is of concern given the rapid and broad growth of this form of education. In the United States, online education programs are experiencing rapid growth. For example, during the academic year 2005-2006, more than 90,000 middle and high school students were enrolled in state virtual schools in the Southern Regional Education Board, which represented a 100% increase in enrollments from the previous year (Southern Regional Education Board, 2006). While we might assume that research from contexts of post-secondary may inform K-12 distance education, Cavanaugh, Gillan, Kromrey, Hess, and Blomeyer (2004) caution against this assumption as follows: “The temptation may be to attempt to apply or adapt findings from studies of K-12 classroom learning or of adult distance learning, but K-12 distance education is fundamentally unique” (p. 4). The authors further observed that, although research in this area “is maturing” (p. 17), it has only been studied since about 1999. The current “explosion in virtual schools” (p. 6) creates a compelling rationale for continued efforts to conduct research on K-12 distance education.
Policy Deficit in Distance Education: A Transactional Distance